Faculty Senate

Minutes - October 31, 2022 - 3:05pm - Online through WebEx

CCSU FACULTY SENATE MEETING

Present: Acharya, K.; Al-Masoud, N.; Amaya, L.; Andreoletti, C.; Arena, J.; Barr, B.; Best, F.; Bigelow, L.; Boone, N.; Boscarino, N.; Bray, A.; Broulik, W.; Button, C.;  Cole, E.; Donohue, P.; Duquette, J.; Elfant, A.; Fallon, M.; Farrish, K.; Foshay, J.; Foster, P.; Garbovskiy, Y.; Gardner, P.; Hazan, S.; Heinen, E.; Hernandez, R.; Horrax, S.; Jackson, M.; Kapper, M.; Karas, R.; Kean, K.; King, A.; Kirk, C.; Kulesza, M.; Langevin, K.; Love, K.; Lui, R.; Martin, K.; Matthews, S.; Matzke, B.; Mitchell, D.; Moriarty, M.; Nicastro, M.; O'Connor, J.; Ofray, J.; Oguz, A.; Orange, M.; Oyewumi, Y.;  Pana, E.; Paolina, J.; Patterson, Y.; Recoder-Nunez, L.; Rivera, T.; Salama, T.; Santilli, M.; Savatorova, V.; Schenck, S.; Schmidt, S.; Smith, R.; Spinelli, A.; Sugg, K.; Tellier, A.; Villanti, S.; Wang, W.; Werblow, J.; Zadi, S.; Zhao, S.; Zhou, B.

Ex-Officio: Blitz, D.; Burkholder, T.; Frank, L.; Mulrooney, J.; Kostelis, K.; Toro, Z.; Wolff, R.

 

Parliamentarian: Dimmick, C.

President of the Senate: Latour, F.

Guests: Bucher, L.; Byrd Danso, K.; Cintorino, S.;  Claffey, G.; Cox, Sharon; Kirby, Y.;  Larsen, K.; Mahony, M.; McGrath, K.; Merenstein, B.; Misra, K.; Moore, N.; Phillips, E.; Pincince, T.; Robinson, C.; Suski-Lenczewski, A.; Votto, S.; Wright, C.

1. Minutes

• Minutes of October 17, 2022

The minutes of October 17, 2022 were approved.

2. Announcements:

a. AAUP President (T. Burkholder)

• There was a well-attended virtual Chapter meeting last week.
• The recently issued joint statement on shared governance was described as an important document that faculty are going to have to collectively enforce. Shared governance is going to require that faculty make sure governance is being shared. If issues arise, faculty should contact any member of the AAUP Executive Committee.  President Toro has assured AAUP that she will uphold management’s end of the bargain.  The guidelines are set out in the document.  This also requires effort on the part of the Faculty Senate, which will need to take timely action when required.
  • Question (S. Hazan) – Why didn’t the shared governance statement include SUOAF since the Senate is comprised of AAUP and SUOAF? T. Burkholder indicated that it was the result of a meeting of the AAUP Executive Board and President Toro, and is not binding on the Senate.
    • F. Latour indicated the Senate could act to endorse the joint statement.
• The next Chapter meeting will be held on November 22.

b. SUOAF-AFSCME (S. Villanti)

• SUOAF’s Campus Climate Survey closed October 18th. The response rate was 77.7%. The SUOAF E-Board is convening a focus group of 12 members to discuss the pie charts and individual comments. Results show significant campus climate concerns. SUOAF will also be reaching out to Vice President of Equity and Inclusion Craig Wright to begin a discussion.
• The SUOAF President attended a meeting with President Toro last week to begin dialogue about how to improve the campus climate from SUOAF’s perspective.
• The next SUOAF Chapter meeting is November 3. On the agenda are nominations for the Local Officers and the results of the climate survey.

c. SGA (O. Olamuyiwa)

• F. Latour presented an Official Statement from the CCSU Student Government Association in which 79.% of the students responding to a survey indicated a preference for not requiring PIN numbers.
  • K. Langevin asked whether an SGA representative could be invited to attend the next meeting to answer questions.
    • F. Latour noted it may be better to ask them to attend a meeting of the Committee on Academic Advising.
  • Sen. Boone wondered what the motivation is for students not wanting to have a PIN. She noted having difficulty getting students to show up for advising appointments this semester.
  • Chat comment (P. Foster): Maybe students with >100 credits and >3.0 GPA could be absolved of the PIN requirement, but they might be the most likely to visit their advisor anyway.
  • Chat comment (K. Langevin): The nursing students are just showing up to meet with their advisor; they're shocked to find out no PINs are required.
  • S. Hazan said he would encourage student senators to join a meeting and did not want to speak for them, but noted that they did not feel they were getting good advising and think they could do better on their own (e.g., some students have been advised to take courses they did not need.) Other students on SGA felt that they benefitted from getting advisement.

d. FAC to the Board of Regents (D. Blitz)

• D. Blitz provided the following report on behalf of the FAC.
• There is a special Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) to the Board of Regents meeting coming up to which all faculty and staff are invited, this Friday, November 4 from 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.  It is an informational update on 3 issues; the first two concern the community colleges, but the third has some implications for the universities:
• Alignment and Completion of Math and English (ACME).  This is a policy adopted by the BOR last year which effectively eliminates remedial math and English at the community college (CC) level, with the exception of English as a Second Language.  There has been much concern about this proposal, as well as the proposal to mainstream students into college-level courses, independent of their level of preparation, wherein students voluntarily request assistance and faculty are expected to voluntarily provide the assistance, in addition to their course load. This has implication for the universities since those students coming from the CCs may not satisfy the universities’ math and English requirement.
• Department chairs at community colleges. In one of the most recent of many iterations of the “one community college,” the System Office proposed eliminating all department chairs. Under the plan faculty, curriculum groups, etc. would report directly to an associate dean.  This is under discussion with the 4Cs and AFT union. There will be an update on this at the upcoming meeting because this is a matter of considerable concern as well.
• Financial situation at WCSU. Commentary was deferred to the proposed resolution coming up later on the agenda.
• The second FAC meeting will take place on Friday, November 18 from 1-2 p.m.  The first hour will be a joint meeting of the FAC and the BOR. The topic will be full funding for public higher education in the state.  This is significant because it is an effort on the FAC’s part, which has been favorably received by BOR Chair Ryan, to change the narrative to what we need to do jointly to make a concerted proposal to the legislature.  This is a complicated endeavor. The FAC needs to look at some of the figures that will be used for the meeting.  What percentage increase in funding to the CSU system do we need annually? What is our objective, and what do we mean by full funding? It needs to have specific details. In how many years can we get there? How do we get there in terms of percentage increases? What is the absolute amount, in dollars, that will be needed? Members of the Senate were invited to submit any suggestions they have for the November 18 meeting to D. Blitz.
• Comment: F. Best commented on mainstreaming which, at the time he was in the K-12 system, involved pairing a special education teacher with a regular teacher and the special education teacher would assist students with need.  He asked if the BOR is looking at something like this or is the BOR using some other definition. D. Blitz: the student having difficulty would need to contact the instructor and then it would be on the infrastructure to develop a plan to meet students’ needs.  This is based on a system implemented in California, which has been sold as a way for greater equity for minority students. In California, additional funds may have been available for providing the needed assistance. The number of students who completed English and math was higher, but the number of minority students who failed was also significantly higher.  This is one of the reasons to have this discussion as part of the information update.
• F. Best also noted that this approach to mainstreaming has historically referred to students with cognitive deficits, which leads him to wonder if minority students disproportionately perceive they have cognitive deficits or is it that they just have not performed as well as their non-minority counterparts. He asked if it is more related to math or language arts, or is it across the board? D. Blitz said it was based on the completion statistics, which show that a lower percentage of minority students complete the college curriculum, as comparted to their non-minority counterparts. It was presented strictly as a matter of equity.  F. Best asked if it was economic, or caused by other structural differences, and not related to cognitive ability. D. Blitz said it could be, but that is not something the BOR is looking at.  It is based on a study done by the Columbia University Center for the Study of Community Colleges and the BOR has adopted that recommendation.
• E. Phillips commented that the research shows students are not doing as well post-COVID and we have seen that in the classroom.  All this is happening at the same time the Supreme Court is debating Affirmative Action. She opined that in some ways, we may be going backwards.
• F. Best noted he is finding in his classes that he has to allot for time for students to understand what it means to construct a thesis and a transitional statement and to defend it with sources.  Perhaps it could be suggested that there is much more pressure on faculty not to assume that any student, based on gender or ethnicity, is up to par, and to have some type of program where you give all students feedback.
• D. Blitz will send an email with the link to the meeting. It will be livestreamed on YouTube. With the link, you will have the ability to email a question.

e. President of the Senate (F. Latour)

• Fall Commencement will be held on Saturday, December 17 with a snow date of Sunday, December 18. For those interested in attending, there is a deadline for ordering regalia if you do not own your own. The deadline is November 10. A faculty invitation sent on Thursday, October 27 contained all the information, including how to RSVP and a link to the Commencement website. If you need to order regalia, you have to order and pay for it by November 10th.

3. Elections

a. Reminder - Election of Promotion and Tenure Committee and others

• The Elections Committee sent a ballot to everyone for election of the Promotion and Tenure Committee along with a number of other committees and the approval/disapproval of the proposed amendment to the Senate Constitution.  It was sent last Thursday. Senators should use that ballot to cast their vote.  The deadline to vote is November 3.

b. Enrollment Management Council

• There is a group known as the Enrollment Management Council (EMC) that is supposed to include a faculty representative from each of the four schools.  The University is looking to replenish the Council with new faculty from three of the four schools (SEPS already has a member).  The Senate Steering Committee proposed issuing a call for nominations and having the elections done by the Senate.  Fred invited any member of management to add commentary.
  
  • President Toro said the EMC has been in place since the Summer of 2017 and it is the body in which all the offices involved in the recruitment and retention of students are represented and where conversations about items that will impact recruitment and retention strategies are considered. She noted that it is an operational body. That means that decisions are made in the Council that will be implemented right away.  Dr. Toro stated it is not a strategic council, however it has been very helpful to have faculty representation from each one of the schools.  She said one thing is important to keep in mind: faculty members who participate in this council will be compensated or rewarded because they may be asked to work on follow-up initiatives. That compensation could come in the form of release time. She said it is important – as part of improving the communication within the campus on what is going on between the administration and faculty – that whoever is representing a school has to be a liaison to the dean and department chairs in their school and those conversations have to be two-way so that everyone can be informed about what is being discussed in EMC and feedback on actions and initiatives that are about to be implemented can be gathered. Dr. Toro cited as an example the change in the format of Open House.
  • F. Latour shared the results of the solicitation seeking interested faculty from the three schools in need of representation on the EMC:
    • CLASS: James Austin (English) and Carlos Liard-Muriente (Economics)
    • Business: Michael Gendron (Management Information Systems) and Sarah Stookey (Management & Organization)
    • SEST: Barry Westcott (Chemistry & Biochemistry) and Ned Moore (Engineering)
  • Fred said there are two options: to use the poll tool during a meeting or have a ballot sent out by the Elections Committee.
  • L. Frank noted she had sent a third name to F. Latour from another Business faculty member. (Decorti Rodgers-Tonge, Accounting).
  • Fred asked about the date of the next ECM meeting.  Dr. Toro noted it meets biweekly and the next meeting is November 9.  Since the meeting is not immediately, Fred proposed that the election be done by ballot sent by the Elections Committee. There was no objection.

4. Committee Reports (reports marked with an asterisk are informational reports intended for consent agenda only; if you would like a report to be discussed, please inform the President and Secretary by Monday, noon) 

a. Curriculum Committee (N. Moore)

• N. Moore announced that the community college system is changing all of its course numbers, effective next fall. Transfer students with courses with the new numbers will begin to appear at CCSU in Spring 2024. However, current CCSU students who are taking classes at a community college next fall will start asking questions about community college courses next March. All of the new course numbers have not yet been released, meaning CCSU will have to sprint to make sure that all of the crosswalks are aligned properly at the beginning of the new year. He alerted faculty that some may be asked to help determine course transfers and asked them to please answer the call.
  
  • F. Latour clarified whether the department chairs would have information about the new courses ahead of time.  N. Moore confirmed that would happen. He said he mentioned this now only so no one would be surprised.
    
• The community colleges will be requiring all of their students to take a general education course under this new system. The Curriculum Committee assigned it to Study Area IV; it is similar to CCSU 103.
  
• Ned reviewed the remainder of the report presented with the agenda.
  • F. Best commented on some of the courses on the list of courses identified for potential deletion. He asked whether departments are being consulted and who will be included in the discussion about whether the courses will be maintained or deleted. N. Moore indicated that there will be a six-month period for consultation before this comes back to the Senate. He said he will remove from the list any courses identified by departments or individual faculty. He noted that some of the courses on the list have not been taught in at least four years; in other cases, departments have identified courses that cannot be taught because the department does not have faculty with the required expertise.
  • R. Wolff noted that a number of the courses on the list are connected to faculty who have retired or left the university. He also noted that in some cases, programs and course have shifted their focus. He said this is a much-needed housecleaning effort, but courses deleted could always be added later.
  • Sen. Arena inquired about CHEM 406. N. Moore noted that he received an email about the course, and it will not be deleted.
  • Sen. Best said he appreciated Dean Wolff’s comments and hoped that all input would be considered before a course is deleted. In the cases where there are no faculty to teach the content, he asked whether Dean Wolff was referring to full- or part-time faculty? Dean Wolff said that in History, the lower level courses students want to take has changed, and is somewhat a moving target.
  • Motion: To approve the report of the Curriculum Committee.  Motion passed.

b. FIRC - Framework Implementation and Review Committee (S. Cox)

• S. Cox shared the goals for this academic year.  The only goal is to prepare rubrics that will reflect the SLOs that were accepted last year.  The FIRC works in small groups; there is a representative from each campus, including all 12 community colleges and all 5 four-year institutions.  Each SLO will be presented to each campus for feedback, which will be incorporated before they are presented for approval.  This is an ambition timeline. It took 2.5 years to develop the SLOs. The rubrics will be shared with Senate as soon as they are available.  If feedback is not received from a key constituency, S. Cox will follow up with the appropriate dean.  She noted that some timelines for feedback may be short.
• D. Blitz asked if FIRC receives reports on the status of articulation agreements. She said yes.
• F. Latour noted that no work has been done on updating the Transfer & Articulation agreements for the various programs.  That is going to be a major undertaking in the near future. S. Cox noted that what role FIRC will play in future TAP agreements is uncertain.

5. New Business

a. Resolution on Social Sciences at WCSU (D. Blitz)

• CCSU Faculty Senate Resolution on Low Completer Programs Policy
• SCSU Faculty Senate Resolution on Low Completer Programs Policy
• WCSU Dean's report on Social Sciences
• WCSU Provost's report on Social Sciences
• WCSU President invoking Article 5.20
  • The proposed resolution was shared for discussion and possible action.
  • MOTION: To pass the proposed resolution (Latour/Savatorova).
  • FAC Rep. Blitz provided context for the resolution, citing WCSU’s fiscal deficit. As further background, he stated that there was a vote of no confidence passed by the WCSU Senate against the former president and that a new, interim president has been appointed and given a mandated to rectify the financial situation.  The interim president is trying to achieve $11.2 million in salary savings. Two-thirds to three-quarters of this sum has been achieved by freezing 23 faculty lines, 8 clerical positions and 22 maintenance lines.
  • D. Blitz said it was a surprise to the Social Sciences Department when the Dean did an assessment and made the recommendation to “park” (i.e., no longer admit to) those programs or eliminate the Social Science majors, minors and their upper division courses.  The documents provided along with the proposed resolution included comments from the dean and provost. There is no mention of the 9 faculty in the program, all with Ph.D. and active research programs.  During the public comment period at the last BOR meeting, students spoke eloquently about maintaining those programs, as did two faculty, the president of the union and the chair of the targeted department.  They all spoke about qualitative aspects of the programs.  The provost’s recommendation did not address any of these qualitative aspects; the total assessment was based on the percentage of filling the sections.  The president’s recommendation is to eliminate those programs.  Under the contract, we are now in a 60-day period of consultation. D. Blitz said he spoke to the interim president after the last BOR meeting. He stated that his mandate is not to represent the faculty or to advance academic programs of the university.  He has a two-year mandate from the BOR and President of CSCU to rectify Western’s economic situation.  As a small anecdote, D. Blitz suggested that he look at the sports programs and was told in response that the football program was “making a profit” because they do not award scholarships and they do charge admission to the games.  That said, this motion is important as an expression of solidarity with Western colleagues and also because what is going on at Western could become a precedent of what could happen at the other universities.
  • F. Latour shared that a few years ago, the Board issued its policy on low completer programs.  Essentially, the policy says that programs with a small number of graduates (i.e., fewer than ten) needs to justify its existence. This policy was rejected at the CCSU Faculty Senate and the SCSU Faculty Senate.  The policy was mostly developed by the BOR and System Office with very little input from the campuses. Using the fact that the programs are unable to meet a policy of the Board as some kind of evidence that the programs are not viable is a relatively weak argument; the Board could change its policy, making the program viable.  Fred also noted that in the president’s report, which is very brief, he mentions the BA in Economics, the BA in Anthropology/Sociology, the BA in Social Science and the BS in Meteorology. However, the BS in Meteorology was not mentioned in the recommendation from the provost. It seems to have come out of nowhere. He also noted that Political Science was not included because the provost offered the proposal to “park” it instead of cancelling it in order to give the department an opportunity to develop it so that it would distinguish itself and stand out among others. Fred reviewed the background documents that were presented with the proposed resolution.
  • Sen. Best spoke in strong support of the motion stating it has strong existential functions. He noted that the role of general education has not been looked at, and social science faculty have a strong role in general education.  He also noted that money is needed to run education, but making decisions purely on an economic basis, means you are not evaluating the situation as a learned person. He supported standing with our Western colleagues and supporting a strong foundation in the social sciences.
  • Fred answered a question in the chat, clarifying that if a Senator is not present, the Alternate attending may vote.
  • Fred also noted that he has been in contact with the other Senate presidents. The WCSU Senate President sent him a reminder about what is going on in order to make sure that we clarify that certain rumors may not be true.  The five truths are: (1) the President has invoked Article 5.20 of the AAUP contract and we have 60 days to review; (2) there is no recommendation to eliminate full-time faculty; (3) there is no recommendation to close any departments; (4) Western will not stop offering social science or liberal arts courses of any kind; and (5) there is a recommendation to close for low completer programs within two departments.  All of these points have been made clear. They are not closing the Department of Social Sciences, but it will be very difficult for them to attract or retain faculty and that will have an impact on the faculty. It is interesting that the closure of the Meteorology program is mentioned in the President’s report, even though it is not in the Provost’s report.
  • T. Burkholder asked if the resolution should include the Meteorology program.
  • Sen. O’Connor stated that he has heard that the Meteorology program was on the chopping block two years ago and that those concerns have now been resurrected and the program put on the list by WCSU’s interim president. He also noted there was a special session of the WCSU Senate last Friday and both the Social Sciences and Meteorology chairs made presentations defending their respective programs.
  F. Latour proposed an amendment to add the following as a new second Whereas: “Whereas the WCSU President has added Meteorology to the list of programs to be discontinued, even though it was not listed on the Provost’s report,”  and also proposed adding reference to the Meteorology program in the first Resolved. (Proposal accepted; Latour/Langevin)
  
  • MOTION: To approve the proposed amendment. Motion passed.
  • Sen. Spinelli called attention to a couple typographical and punctuation errors in the proposed resolution. F. Latour called for objections. Hearing none, he corrected the typographical and punctuation errors.
  • MOTION: To approve the proposed resolution (Latour/Savatorova). Motion passed.
  • F. Latour noted he will inform the presidents of the other Senates that this resolution was passed.

b. Campus Climate

• F. Latour noted there has been a lot of discussion about the campus climate and morale and that the AAUP and SUOAF unions have administered climate surveys of their memberships. The resolution that came from AAUP was a joint statement on shared governance. Fred asked if this was a good place to begin a Senate discussion.  He stated that the Resolution mentions AAUP and the AAUP contract, but it also references the Faculty Senate. Fred shared the Joint Statement.
• T. Burkholder said that AAUP agreed to issue a joint statement after meeting with President Toro the week prior. Tom noted that the joint statement is very AAUP-centric; a lot of the language was pulled from the AAUP contract and AAUP statements about the governance of universities and that is why it does not include other constituencies.  He said that the Faculty Senate was mentioned because a lot of the shared governance structures are either committees of the faculty or Faculty Senate committees, so they will be the places where shared governance happens. He noted Faculty Senate has a broader representation than just AAUP.
• L. Bigelow clarified that SUOAF understands the genesis of the joint statement and is not looking to become a part of it.  S. Villanti noted that the joint statement is a good start, but that a much deeper and broader conversation about the campus climate needs to happen. He suggested that this topic be put on a future Senate agenda. F. Latour said that could be done several ways: by putting it under Unfinished Business on a future Senate agenda or by special meeting of the Senate.  Additionally, there could be a faculty-wide meeting. 
• T. Burkholder agreed with Sen. Villanti and said he feels we need to discuss how this joint statement gets put into effect.
• Sen. Bigelow stated she approached T. Burkholder on the subject of holding a joint meeting of AAUP and SUOAF member so that faculty from both unions could share their concerns. She said that AAUP was receptive to the matter and suggested holding a joint meeting of the unions’ executive boards to discuss the parameters of such a meeting.
• Sen. Langevin asked who would call that meeting. T. Burkholder said he and SUOAF President L. Bigelow would call the meeting.
• E. Phillips noted that there should be a clear agenda for the joint meeting and it should not be a free-for-all.

6. Adjournment

• Motion to adjourn (F. Best). Motion passed. Meeting adjourned at 4:46 p.m.